A Time, A Pace, Places
by Silvara
Summary: Now that the war was behind them, the memory of a conversation with the Commander came back to Rafiel's mind. Tonight, he hoped to finally tell Nailah what had been plaguing his mind. Yet, sometimes, reconnecting requires much more than words. —An attempt at character development with loose humor and tenderness, with references to the base conversation Appearances.


_A short note: This is the first time that I write something like this in English._

 _Another fair warning would be to mention that this is so sweet that it may end up rotting your teeth. :)_

 **.ஐ***

 _"Rafiel are you alright? ...You look a lot like your brother Reyson, but you're nothing like him._

 _Reyson looks delicate, but on the inside he's all iron._ _You, on the other hand... I don't know. I worry that I might kill you if I shout too loud or something."_

 _"That's enough, Ike. Rafiel is everything that herons are expected to be: quiet, elegant, and delicate. Those are words people use to describe herons, and he fits all three. Prince Reyson spent a long time in the care of the hawk tribe. No doubt he's picked up all sorts of quirks."_

 _"He told me he wanted to be just like King Tibarn. What about you, Rafiel?"_

 _"Well... Sure, it'd be nice to be a bit more like Tibarn, I suppose."_

 _"Ike, be quiet."_

.

There had been barely a month after the Goddess has been made at peace with herself again, the elder Prince of the Heron Clan realized.

Yet when they had had this discussion back then, he had heard the worry echoing in the Commander's mind, and hoped that agreeing on what Ike wanted to hear would decrease his chances to be ordered to stay away from the coming battles.

It was surprising to hear that kind of suggestion from a Beorc, though. For as long as he has lived, it had been the first time that he heard a Beorc encouraging them to fuel more chaotic energy while a Laguz—his dearest Queen—voiced expectations of unconditional passivity instead.

And so, Rafiel had wondered if Ike was an exception, or if the image of the Heron Clan's was already changing in Tellius' eye.

Then his father awoke.

Lorazieh had gathered all of his family at the old altar, escorted by the Hawk King and the Wolf Queen, to sing for Lehran and soothe the spirit of their common ancestor. There, he had answered a lot of the royals' questions about the Heron Clan.

His father's words and songs reminded Rafiel of a kingdom that had been thought as lost, one which was now given a change to grow anew.

It was not before the next day that the prince realized that he was standing and living under the same trees that had housed his Clan. Years of teaching and training had slowly awoken again to his memory. He knew that his heart and his choices would always be the same, yet by his father's side, he found himself thinking like a crown prince again.

Still, the memories came, stumbling over one another, making him wonder where exactly they left his mate and himself now, what they made of his clan and family in this day.

He was still a crown Prince while Nailah had long been a Queen, a seasoned ruler and leader to a kingdom of two clans united as one. He was almost a century older than her, yet she had done so much more in her life than him. His experiences has been taken from afar, theory, studies and political lessons. Hers were visceral, life deciding, violent, and demanding. They both had knowledge that the other had not and would never learn on their own...

It would be complicated to deal with the way Tellius had come to regard his Clan. They had been marked as victims and for long they would be only seen as such. It would take time and effort for their voice to be heard and met with anything other than pity. Yet, Rafiel knew that his father would not feel discouraged. Even if the heron king only had his family with him anymore, it was as the head of a laguz clan that he would fight for their rights. Rafiel knew it. It was something that Rafiel understood, Something that he could envision.

Coming back to his current dilemma, what the heron prince couldn't imagine, though, was to feel held at bay from a beloved soul. It was a situation unnatural to his kin. Even if he had been away from his kin for so long, the Wolf Queen had always accommodated as many of his needs as she could in her position. Almost since he had meet her, there had only been seldom times when Nailah felt or thought something that he didn't know instantly.

So, now that the memory of his conversation with the Commander was on his mind and refused to be quieted, feeling uncertain of half of Nailah thoughts about him felt quite uncomfortable.

Of course he knew that his queen had meant to defend him when he answered Ike, but complicated thought processes and old feelings were less clear than the other inputs his senses could grasp. He knew that there had been more behind her words and a part of the prince was left guessing at her sentiment...

.

Now the moon had risen high and there were finally alone. The war was behind them as much as most of their worries and they had the morrow at their leisure.

It felt good.

Finally he would be able to find his mate again and tell her what had been plaguing his mind...

That was what Rafiel had thought, until he realized that he was lying on their bed and found the Wolf Queen's mouth on his throat—wait, when had she blown the other lamps?

He could have sworn that none of this had been happening but a minute ago, no one had their lips moving against him and no leg was slipped between his through the bedclothes. Had he been lost in thoughts so long?

He was once again cut when his mate's hands slowly cupped his waist with rather appreciative thoughts—her thumbs circling his hipbones to slide up his middle as she moved against him.

Even through the dimness of their large tent he could distinguish every curve and angle of her body, her tribal marks cutting and curling on her skin like secretive shadows, hypnotizing. He imagined how the gold tones of her beads and jewelry would illuminate her skin and enhance her mystical allure.

He shook himself out of these thoughts. If he was to stop her he would really be wiser to do so quickly...he felt the crook of her tongue grow restless against his skin as the heels of her palms trailed along his sides, soon replaced by the firm softness of her chest. _Anytime would be good now._ He was only able to reach one of her hand and close his other one into her curls to draw her away.

Purely on instinct, she caught it and straddled him in only single move—so quick and coordinated that he didn't feel an inch of her body leave his. He lifted his other hand—briefly forgot himself in the low valley of her back—but managed to bring it to her shoulder level when she caught it mid-air to get both up and out of her way. Enclosing his wrists, her fingers pressed his hands harder into the make-shift bed—he tugged at them and she grinded herself into his hips, making his breath catch as she trapped him under her strong and pliant frame. On instinct, the ends of his wings flipped a little nervously. He rarely felt anything positive from restraint, but somehow, there were many things that he would have never accepted from others that became right with his Queen. Twenty years had been a lot of time for a lot of opportunities and there was no point in denying the pleasure he took under her anymore.

He felt her breath, then her lip grazing the inner shell of his ear; her breasts rubbing just an inch too far above his nipples. He called to her, both coercing and reproachful, but was only rewarded (or punished, depending of which part of his body that was in charge) with a flicker of tongue—just too sudden for his senses to predict, it cast him out of his skin in a second and he forgot why what he wanted to say was so important. He jolted forward in her embrace and closed his eyes, lost and ready to fly...but she waited before resuming teasing kisses along his jaw.

He had hoped that she wouldn't enforce that pace again...he would not have to try to resist her if there was a chance for him to see the end of this dance before the morrow and still remember his name. Nailah wasn't cruel, he could feel from her heart that her rhythm with him had always came to her naturally. She never directly denied him...the little problem was simply that, by the name of his house and for what it was worth, he simply had no mind to ask her for anything in bed. _S-so ehm..._ Well, it was quite fortunate that she was not teasing with such design~

Still, she never acknowledged him unless he sung for her, until she had him exactly where she desired _seeking and drinking in his sounds, pleasure and contentment, adamant, merciless_... He could feel that she seldom desired anything else. Those were simply what tipped her over the edge with him. Whenever she felt patient, she would let him have his way first (or at least, begin to) before she would rise for a piqué, scorching his body and mind into breathless disheveled pieces.

He wanted to pout, huff, or glare at her—perhaps all three except that her face was currently occupied and so the effect would have been wasted.

 _He drove his head back into the thin mattress and felt his hair messing everywhere as he tried to silence the continuous sound of his moans._

Right now he hoped that she would just take him completely and be done with it or free him and let him have his way so he could still remember what he wanted to say before the morrow...in any case, the latter event was unlikely to happen this night.

When she closed ghostly teeth around the small of his thyroid, he couldn't hold a whine as he felt all of his blood rush in the direction that his mind was tried to forget. He turned his head aside and hummed to free his mind. He chastised himself. He felt more than saw the pleasure glazing over the piercing glint of her eye. It felt both flattering and very embarrassing that she could find enough satisfaction from his voice and wings more times than not—the later, because he wasn't without pride, thank you, and in her bed, his often danced on one foot, unsure of where and how it should settle.

Her touch had become just comfortable enough for him to begin to forget her intent...until her free arm swept up around his blocked one, and slid downward again. She slowed at the junction of his shoulder, then slipped along the shoulder blade and he tensed in expectation before her finger touched him right under his wing, curling nails just enough to graze the skin and scrap forward—by the time he stopped moaning the tips of her fingers were sliding along his axillaries, south and south, until they slipped in under tertiaries.

He squared his shoulder, struggling to rein in his wings but the right one still gave up and fluttered under her fingering.

Her small smile grazed his senses before he felt it curving the lips caressing his throat, as mixed streams of amusement-affection-authority brushed against his senses. He would have reddened in another lifetime.

He fought the need to pout and felt his wings curl inward in aggravation. _Very well._ He resolved himself to break the intimate silence that he cherished.

A little radical—but now there was not an inch of his body not burning or moving on its own accord and a man had to use the means at his disposal. However, before he could call her, the fingers tucked under his low feathers shifted against his skin and she trailed them down his flank, further toward his hip, along his thigh... the movement of her body never stopped or changed, still her fingers caught in his cloth, palm open against him.

She clutched his leg a little tighter then sled back up, bringing the cloth along through her caress. His nightclothes slowly escaped him under the covers. Heartbeat burning through his chest and middle with an erratic breath, he struggled but his leg moved on its own accord to rise and feel up the inner side of the Queen's thigh. He wet his lips and gulped to find his voice.

"Nailah?" he whispered, fidgeting.

She struggled a little before pausing her movement.

He called her again, more soundly, steeling his senses in the guilty expectation of a brush of annoyance. Rafiel had no reason to second guess himself, but when he perceived his mate's feelings as if they were his own, even if she did her best to spare his senses, he felt hard pressed to feel disappointment flooding her bones.

"There is—I have a question..." he trailed, searching for an acceptable way to settle her down without breaking her current feelings.

She hummed under her breath, under the lobe of his ear, signaling for him to go on.

He took a long breath and tried to recall how he had prepared for this discussion, but the only help he got from his brain right now, came in the form of a suggestion to grab a tangent and evade it all. Yet he didn't want to doubt his mate's feelings and he doubted that he would feel the courage to bring it up anytime soon after this.

"Do you remember the conversation we had with the Commander when we had just joined his army?"

Nailah paused and drew back a few inches to watch him as his voice grew somber, the fact that he didn't look directly at her alarming her somewhat.

Both of her perking ears quickly turned to his direction.

"Which one?" she asked, and to her credit, nothing in her voice betrayed the impatience he could feel in her heart.

"The first time he had addressed to me at his camp; we talked of Reyson's admiration for King Tibarn."

The wolf queen propped herself up on her elbows. "Yes," she nodded slowly, her gaze narrowing as if recalling something nasty. "I remember this silly conversation... What of it?"

"I was wondering," the bird trailed on, gliding fingers down her bare arms, grazing her burning skin without much thought as he gathered his words. "Now...do you still think that I am...ah," he paused, worrying his lip. She brushed his shin with a thumb and he stopped, gathered himself, drew a fresh breath and finished, "Am I still 'everything that a heron is expected to be'?" Before her brows narrowed even more and his resolve faltered, he blurted out the last words : " _Quiet, elegant, and delicate_. Those were the criteria I remember," he quoted.

.

Nailah's mind went from perplexed to blank in one second and her ears twitched.

She turned her tongue in her mouth a few times until she drew a deep breath and used her only wildcard. "It depend..." _What the hell?_

Hoping that would award her the time that she direly needed to think of her next words. At that he turned and met her gaze...but he must have sensed her utter confusion because he averted his eyes once more.

She bit back on a deep sigh and rolled onto her back, a palm tucked under her neck to resist splaying it on her forehead.

"I have not thought about it. But you were the one who told me everything I know about your Clan, Rafiel. You told me that these words were what people used."

"Some people, yes. Beorc, precisely."

"Oh." She blinked. "I see. Then..." she proceeded, with audible caution, "what words do Laguz use?"

"Ah...I guess that it varies. We had been used to being considered defenseless as a whole." He looked aside from her. "Gullible, naïve, too impressionable to argue with. In spite of our senses, Ravens seemed to think us credulous as well. ...But both parts also granted us better qualifiers," he finished tunelessly.

She eyed him closely with curiosity. "And what about you? How would you describe your clan?"

At that he looked at her with a pause before he blinked and lowered his eyes in thoughts. "I have been on this world for too short a time to speak for my clan." He thought a moment then cautiously offered, "I think that herons cannot be complete avatars of Order anymore than pawns of Chaos. We...used to value balance, and such a principle cannot allow either excess. But my father, or even more so, Lord Lehran would be best suited to give a sensible opinion on what makes us."

"You would trust his opinion, after all that he has done?"

He looked about to fidget under her questioning gaze but felt comfort in her familiar aura and became serene again. "Only about my Clan. Yes."

"I see."

"For myself, I, I have..." (he frowned slowly while he considered this) "I have only striven to be what seemed most useful for others. Now, through," he sung, "Tellius has changed," here his voice modulated into softer octaves, "and so may I."

Both her tail and ears twitched nervously before she could help herself.

.

Silence stretched, a little heavy, slowly edging toward uncomfortable. And when he saw a smile on her face without any trace of reproach, the crown prince felt his heart skip a beat. Trying to settle the butterflies dancing in his stomach, he found himself mirroring it widely.

"You are the wisest counselor that I have had. If you think that this path of change will fit you, then I will try not to worry."

"Thank you—" about to call her his liege again, he caught himself and pondered on this old habit that he had took long before they had become _spiritmates_. ...Well it just felt right to call her his queen, so he sensed no reason not do so in private...

He began to relax, but she wasn't finished. "I will not question your decisions—"

He smiled and whispered "Have you ever, my Queen?"

"—but I will not let anyone pressure you, despite of their title or cause ; neither Laguz, nor Beorc, nor Branded..."

He pecked her lips letting her wonder whether it was as an appreciation, to hush her up or sway her mind. But it didn't prevent her from talking against his lips as soon as she regained her senses.

"And I will not be bent on that point."

He stilled his hand on her flank, his long fingers resting a hair away from the middle of her spine, and sighed. "You have little faith in my determination," he lamented.

"I have always seen people try to force their opinions on you, and you cannot help being overwhelmed by negative emotion. Besides, you have kept from telling me about all of this until now," she replied pointedly.

.

While speaking, Nailah moved again under their sheets, trying not to disturb them too much so the cold wouldn't bother him. (Even if he couldn't stay ill thanks to galdrar, she didn't like to see him flinch for reasons out of her control.) The thick covers almost slipped from her hip but he caught and laid them neatly across her waist, keeping them in his grasp.

"I didn't mean to. But there have be little time of peace since we have arrived on Tellius..."

"Indeed." She kissed his cheek, always with the reverence she reserved for him when they were alone. She was not sure how he managed it, but the positive aura around of him had a placating effect of her temper. "You know, I did not mean these words as an opinion, I just meant to stop Ike from pressing you back then. Nothing more."

"I know. I remember," he smiled softly and she nodded. Of course. There was no point to describe her intentions or feelings to a heron. He would have felt them anyway.

"The only thing that remains," she kissed his other cheek, "is that you have always been perfect, Rafiel. Suggesting that you should change anything would only reveal abmysal depths of ignorance or the shortcomings of a tasteless fool."

"Ah...thank you, my dear..." he strugged off the insult to the commander with a warm chuckle, knowing it useless to try to change her mind about Ike by now. And in a new, glowing smile, he tried to convey the affection that she couldn't feel directly from his heart. Her ears twitched without her notice. He blinked.

When they did it again, he couldn't help himself anymore and lifted a hand to her head.

She narrowed her eyes at him as he deftly threaded fingers on her hair to pet one of her ears. But his bright smile didn't waver one second. She groaned wearily.

"Must you do this?" His smile grew blissfully, fingers threading through fluffed fur.

"Do you still expect me to stop after ten years?"

Nailah briefly tried to turn a pout into a scowl before she closed her eyes with a huff.

"If you didn't want people to do this," the heron softly lectured, "you should not have ears this soft."

"You are the only one to mess with them," she retorted, chiding.

"Because others think you would tear them apart for it."

"Which is just what I want...would want," she growled with a half-hearted glare.

When the Heron chuckled, fingers in her fur, the wolfess eventually closed the distance between them and touched his lips, then a little longer, a hand rounding around of his shoulder then caressing his throat, cupping his head...the kiss had long deepened when her other hand closed on the fabric on his waist. He squirmed in spite of himself and the wolf noticed how his bones were sinking into the mattress. Confronting his mate had not been something pleasant and even though he felt very glad that the matter had been sorted, the _echoed_ emotional strain had only been the culmination point of a long and tiring day.

"You are weary," she whispered her recognition on a voice tinged with concern. "I should have known," she kissed his forehead before she rolled away again. "After all," she murmured low and soothingly, "you have being singing these never-ending galdrar at the altar with King Lorazieh for days, now."

"But it has been so long," the heron protested, his meek tone growing distant from the need for sleep. "You are my _spiritmate_ and...I wish to attune to your song." There was contrariety in his gaze, but nothing beyond as he followed her on instinct, sliding down on the mattress then turning on his side and she pushed his right wing behind his back again with the ease of long practiced gestures. "It is time that we meet again...is it not? Waking skin, kissing hearts, merging minds...I miss you as well, my queen..." only half aware of his whispered words, he trailed off with a faint worry, "I wished that I could fulfill your yearnings..."

"Nonsense, bird," she gently chided as he laid his ear on her heart, "You have always done so." He drew his arm against her side, along the queen's hip and his breath slowed down to the measure of her heartbeat. "Hush up and rest. Here I can be content like this," she decided, catching his neck and his head in the loose crook of her arms. "For tonight," she specified with a smirk and he felt his lips curl in response despite of himself.

It was with a much lighter heart and mind that the prince let himself embrace sleep.

.ஐ*

 _Final note_ _: A Time, A Pace, Places had initially been written asexual with the only intent of drawing a smile on your face. But writting it, I came to think about the heron clan. __After giving it thought, I wanted to provide a canonical alternative to the popular assumption of Rafiel's attractions to be platonic or unrequited._ _With a physical dimension, Rafiel's attachment to his Queen could weave a more complex dynamic than that of role-reversal; it could cast its own, unique shadow. ...In a nushell,_ _100% het doesn't mean 100% straight, right?_ _So._

 _However, having Nailah instigate things feels a bit like cheating, right? So...a second chapter with a higher rating may continue this. One with marital heron laguz lore and an original use of shakras (yes, what you think. But with a fantasy_ _twist in the mechanics, of course. :3 )_

About the 'when', we may be speaking years, sadly. Or months—it all depends of the lazy winged muse.

Okay. _If people still read about_ Laguz _, I'd be grateful to hear your sentiment about this. (Polite critique is always welcome)._

 _If you are not logged in and want me to answer to you, please mention your website penname in your message so I can find you and send_ you a PM.


End file.
